The following article was posted on November 27, 2013 in Yes! Magazine. It is reposted here with permission.

"Violence is not simply shooting people. Violence is also poverty. It's also incarceration—putting people in prison is incredibly violent."

By Nur Lalji

On Tuesday, Project NIA, an organization committed to ending youth incarceration, asked its Twitter and Facebook followers to post just six words reflecting on gun culture and mandatory minimum sentencing. What resulted were some compelling stories, posted with the hashtag #mandatory6words. (A few of these compositions have been included below this article.)
Mandatory minimum sentencing has not been shown to prevent crime in the way that advocates of these policies say that it does.

The social media project was part of a two-week-long campaign to fight against a proposed bill in Illinois, SB 1342, which would introduce mandatory minimum sentences for those convicted of owning or discharging an illegal weapon.